> You don't own the recording, just the media. You license the recording.
Bullshit. I own that copy of the recording and the piece of media it sits on. I will do whatever the fuck I want to with that recording, within the confines of the copyright laws of the country I live in. It is MINE. I OWN IT.
> Next step; posh neighborhoods with multiple Teslas discover that electric companies will eventually upgrade the grid to compensate for rising demand as there is money to be made from selling more power. FTFY.
Spam the appropriate phone numbers if you want changes made to a company's policies, and otherwise waste THEIR time. Emailing them merely wastes your own time and accomplishes nothing. Wasting their time costs them money, and if that's what it takes to get your point across, then that's what has to be done.
Emails are easily deleted or routed to/dev/null. Ditto for physical letters. Phone calls, on the other hand, usually end up with a person at the other end, if not a voice mail, and are much harder to ignore, by virtue of how long it takes to just listen to one's messages.
Not to mention one other thing: the moon is FUCKING DEAD. There is literally nothing there to pollute. In the face of a constant barrage of meteroites, who honestly gives two shits if we leave tons of trash up there, let alone active, running research equipment?
I'm all for encouraging people to buy more efficient cars, but what you propose is insane - what about the rest of us who simply cannot and never will be able to afford anything more than old guzzlers that can't even reach 15mpg (city)?
How the hell am I supposed to afford $6 a gallon when gas is already almost unaffordable at $3.50 a gallon?
Who's gonna hand over 30 grand for a new car? Or the roughly 10 grand for an almost-modern used car?
No way am I gonna spend nearly that much on my old car in gas, repairs, car insurance, etc., over its remaining life, and when it dies, I go find another old guzzler I can afford.
"So you use eBay as a promotional tool, but prefer for customers to perform checkout on your web site, and encourage repeat customers to use your web site."
Because doing so is somewhat contrary to eBay policy:
I'd say the bigger issue than talent (or creativity, as one poster put it) vs. skill, since both can be learned with enough effort and training, is a reasonably-congenial personality. That is to say, you might have the hottest c0d1n6 5k1llz in the world, and the actual creative thinking ability to put those skills into practical use, but you're a complete asshole, no one's going to want to work with you - either your coworkers or your next prospective employer - and you'll basically just not get anything done that an employer will be willing to pay you for.
There are good reasons not to have the talent and/or skills to do the work - maybe you can't afford the necessarily schooling, tools, etc. or you have no opportunity - but there's never a reason to be an asshole, whether you are skilled/talented or not.
"That's because the payload would re-enter the atmosphere and return to the point where it left the accelerator at the end of its first orbit"
Not to be pedantic here, but If it's on a ballistic arc, and assuming the payload' orbital insertion motor fails to fire at all, wouldn't it hit not at the place it launched from, but on some plot of land hundreds or thousands of km away from the launch point (depending on the initial trajectory)? After all, that trajectory must intersect with Earth at some point, otherwise the object would stay in orbit...
And then it goes...where exactly? Oh, wait a sec - there was something I read back in grade school, the "water cycle", I think the called it? Some mumbo-jumbo about water in the air turning into clouds and falling as rain/snow.
Cutting the sarcasm for a moment, that's my biggest gripe with all of these "OMG WE'RE USING UP ALL OUR WATER! TURN OFF YOUR SPRINKLERS!!!" types. The water doesn't just disappear or fly off into space - it goes right back into the environment. As long as the returned water isn't being polluted, there simply is not a real problem here.
I think it goes one step further: If there's an error, don't just print/log a message that says "12:34:56 X failed while reading Y". This might be somewhat useful, but also TELL ME WHY it failed in the first damn place! Over the years, it seems to me that these sorts of "failures at reporting failures" fall into three categories:
* The program just exited unexpectedly (but cleanly, i.e. not a segfault), but without logging so much as a "Sorry, I'm broken." -- Why did it exit? -- What function failed?
* The program received a piece of data of a type that was unexpected and can't be handled, but the program just issues a generic bad-data complaint. -- What was the allowable range for the expected piece of data? -- What was the actual data that was received? -- From what source source was the offending data taken?
* Some ancillary process crashed before the main program threw the error, but the main program doesn't bother to mention this fact. -- What was the error/crash message from that process? -- Why couldn't your program continue gracefully after the other process crashed? ---- Why exactly did THAT program crash anyway (see above)?
I'm not talking about spitting out detailed crashdumps, backtraces, etc. or sorting out the cause of some random segfault. That's gdb (etc.) territory. I'm talking about printing, on the way down, a complete explanation of the error, the most likely reason it happened, and what the values of those (likely very few) variables were that were directly related to the process/function/line that actually failed (depending on how much granularity your language of choice offers). Even if your users can't make sense of those messages, YOU can (in theory anyway).
If you can't do that much in the error-handling part of your code, you're doing it wrong.
Though there's a certain streak of flamebait in the above AC's post, he indirectly brings up a point that I've been saying for years:
If you don't want to be treated like the stereotype, don't act like it. That applies as much to groups as to individuals - clean up your own house if you don't want people bitching about how messy it is (especially if you yourself have complaints about others' untidiness), AND KEEP IT CLEAN.
Stereotypes don't come into existence or persist without there being SOME evidence of the behavior that the stereotype covers. That isn't license to use the n-word against all blacks, for example, but those who DO act like it deserve the label.
The difference between me and the AC though is I don't think any of the subjects' attitudes are inborn at all. You wanna get rid of gangs? Change how and what you're teaching to your children - ALL OF YOU - AND KEEP DOING IT until there's no one left (young or old) who will tolerate that kind of life, no matter how long it takes.
Slashdot Mirror
> You don't own the recording, just the media. You license the recording.
Bullshit. I own that copy of the recording and the piece of media it sits on. I will do whatever the fuck I want to with that recording, within the confines of the copyright laws of the country I live in. It is MINE. I OWN IT.
> Next step; posh neighborhoods with multiple Teslas discover that electric companies will eventually upgrade the grid to compensate for rising demand as there is money to be made from selling more power.
FTFY.
Spam the appropriate phone numbers if you want changes made to a company's policies, and otherwise waste THEIR time. Emailing them merely wastes your own time and accomplishes nothing. Wasting their time costs them money, and if that's what it takes to get your point across, then that's what has to be done.
Emails are easily deleted or routed to /dev/null. Ditto for physical letters. Phone calls, on the other hand, usually end up with a person at the other end, if not a voice mail, and are much harder to ignore, by virtue of how long it takes to just listen to one's messages.
Not to mention one other thing: the moon is FUCKING DEAD. There is literally nothing there to pollute. In the face of a constant barrage of meteroites, who honestly gives two shits if we leave tons of trash up there, let alone active, running research equipment?
Actually, it's a chunk of natural lead (galena). Go figure.
You'd seriously go 10-15 years without at least changing your fuel filter!?
.....wait! it's not what you think.
"a new paper analyzes the robustness of /dev/urandom and /dev/urandom."
So now we're putting the dupes together into the same summary? Jeez, can't we at least wait a few hours first?
No, see, when the Enterprise emerged from warp, they did a quick trash dump just before leaving the atmosphere.
Best laugh I've had all day - mod this guy up, damn it :)
"The banking system is closely regulated and monitored..." ...in the hopes and dreams of We the People.
Blucher!
I'm all for encouraging people to buy more efficient cars, but what you propose is insane - what about the rest of us who simply cannot and never will be able to afford anything more than old guzzlers that can't even reach 15mpg (city)?
How the hell am I supposed to afford $6 a gallon when gas is already almost unaffordable at $3.50 a gallon?
Who's gonna hand over 30 grand for a new car? Or the roughly 10 grand for an almost-modern used car?
No way am I gonna spend nearly that much on my old car in gas, repairs, car insurance, etc., over its remaining life, and when it dies, I go find another old guzzler I can afford.
He didn't. He stole it and in return gave them a shoddy bomb casing full of used pinball machine parts.
WARNING: The above link starts blabbing some audio recording with no apparent way to shut it up.
Naw, it's where you keep all those photos of your and your children playing with variously-sized rings and mixtures of soap, water, and glycerine. :-)
"So you use eBay as a promotional tool, but prefer for customers to perform checkout on your web site, and encourage repeat customers to use your web site."
Because doing so is somewhat contrary to eBay policy:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/rfe-spam-non-ebay-sale.html
Forget the spoon rest - will it be able to compete with Spatula City?
Hey now, be fair. Superman did use a revolving door once, because the only phone booth nearby was rather unsuitable for the purpose.
I'd say the bigger issue than talent (or creativity, as one poster put it) vs. skill, since both can be learned with enough effort and training, is a reasonably-congenial personality. That is to say, you might have the hottest c0d1n6 5k1llz in the world, and the actual creative thinking ability to put those skills into practical use, but you're a complete asshole, no one's going to want to work with you - either your coworkers or your next prospective employer - and you'll basically just not get anything done that an employer will be willing to pay you for.
There are good reasons not to have the talent and/or skills to do the work - maybe you can't afford the necessarily schooling, tools, etc. or you have no opportunity - but there's never a reason to be an asshole, whether you are skilled/talented or not.
"That's because the payload would re-enter the atmosphere and return to the point where it left the accelerator at the end of its first orbit"
Not to be pedantic here, but If it's on a ballistic arc, and assuming the payload' orbital insertion motor fails to fire at all, wouldn't it hit not at the place it launched from, but on some plot of land hundreds or thousands of km away from the launch point (depending on the initial trajectory)? After all, that trajectory must intersect with Earth at some point, otherwise the object would stay in orbit...
"Water disappears into thin air, [...]"
And then it goes...where exactly? Oh, wait a sec - there was something I read back in grade school, the "water cycle", I think the called it? Some mumbo-jumbo about water in the air turning into clouds and falling as rain/snow.
Cutting the sarcasm for a moment, that's my biggest gripe with all of these "OMG WE'RE USING UP ALL OUR WATER! TURN OFF YOUR SPRINKLERS!!!" types. The water doesn't just disappear or fly off into space - it goes right back into the environment. As long as the returned water isn't being polluted, there simply is not a real problem here.
The united states is officially a lost cause. No justice in this country anymore.
I think it goes one step further: If there's an error, don't just print/log a message that says "12:34:56 X failed while reading Y". This might be somewhat useful, but also TELL ME WHY it failed in the first damn place! Over the years, it seems to me that these sorts of "failures at reporting failures" fall into three categories:
* The program just exited unexpectedly (but cleanly, i.e. not a segfault), but without logging so much as a "Sorry, I'm broken."
-- Why did it exit?
-- What function failed?
* The program received a piece of data of a type that was unexpected and can't be handled, but the program just issues a generic bad-data complaint.
-- What was the allowable range for the expected piece of data?
-- What was the actual data that was received?
-- From what source source was the offending data taken?
* Some ancillary process crashed before the main program threw the error, but the main program doesn't bother to mention this fact.
-- What was the error/crash message from that process?
-- Why couldn't your program continue gracefully after the other process crashed?
---- Why exactly did THAT program crash anyway (see above)?
I'm not talking about spitting out detailed crashdumps, backtraces, etc. or sorting out the cause of some random segfault. That's gdb (etc.) territory. I'm talking about printing, on the way down, a complete explanation of the error, the most likely reason it happened, and what the values of those (likely very few) variables were that were directly related to the process/function/line that actually failed (depending on how much granularity your language of choice offers). Even if your users can't make sense of those messages, YOU can (in theory anyway).
If you can't do that much in the error-handling part of your code, you're doing it wrong.
You know perfectly well we're not permitted to land on Europa, or even to attempt it.
Though there's a certain streak of flamebait in the above AC's post, he indirectly brings up a point that I've been saying for years:
If you don't want to be treated like the stereotype, don't act like it. That applies as much to groups as to individuals - clean up your own house if you don't want people bitching about how messy it is (especially if you yourself have complaints about others' untidiness), AND KEEP IT CLEAN.
Stereotypes don't come into existence or persist without there being SOME evidence of the behavior that the stereotype covers. That isn't license to use the n-word against all blacks, for example, but those who DO act like it deserve the label.
The difference between me and the AC though is I don't think any of the subjects' attitudes are inborn at all. You wanna get rid of gangs? Change how and what you're teaching to your children - ALL OF YOU - AND KEEP DOING IT until there's no one left (young or old) who will tolerate that kind of life, no matter how long it takes.